The Aral Sea

The Aral Sea (continued)
The Aral Sea was once 64,500 kilometres square in size. By Jerry Owen’s description:
"[It] is located in the lowlands of Turan occupying land in the Republics of Kazakstan and Uzbekistan. From ancient times it was known as an oasis. Traders, hunters, fishers, and merchants populated this fertile site littered with lagoons and shallow straits that characterized the Aral landscape. The word “aral” in Kazakh is translated “island”, over a thousand of which were scattered throughout this region, which made up part of the Silk Road, the highway between Europe and Asia."
This large body of water was an immense resource for the fishermen around its shores. Twenty-two different types of known fish swam in the once “endless expanse of bountiful waters” (Hinrichsen.) Many animals also lived around the shores of the Aral Sea and fed off of the plants and trees. These trees grew in a thick desert forest, which was also located near the Aral Sea. The vegetation around them nourished all the animals that inhabited in this area. Until the late 1960s, more than 3,000 fishermen worked the rich waters around Muynak, a city in the former USSR (today Muynak exists in Karakalpakistan, officially a region of Uzbekistan.) Aquaculture was a key industry. "In 1957, [the] last record year for fishing,”…“Muynak fishing collectives brought in nearly 26,000 tons of fish, accounting for over half of the total catch for the entire sea” (Kenesbay.) Previous - Next

The Aral Sea (continued)